Showing results for "Andre Norton" in Fairy Tales

The king's lottery has determined that Twilla, a young orphaned apprentice of a renowned wise woman, must marry—for only the wedded can survive the terrible fate awaiting those who penetrate the primeval forest. Altered by a talisman of great power, she escapes her unwanted lot and joins a commander's tragically blinded son on a remarkable journey from peril to peril. For they are the chosen who must rescue the vanquished of an ancient war of magic . . . and shape the destiny of a bloody, disputed land.

A mage, seeking to enslave the Valley and destroy the Forest, has brutally sundered a family. A mother has fled into the woods with her infant girl-child, while the depraved sorcerer holds the babe’s twin—a boy—captive in a black tower. The mother dies but the girl survives. Adopted by the strange denizens of the Forest—safe from the mage’s malevolent influence—she grows to young womanhood, cultivating a cherished skill that has been denied the others of her kind: the ability to truly hear the sounds of her world.

An orphaned child and captive scullery maid, young Willadene possesses an uncanny ability to sense and understand the magical odors that pervade her world. It is this remarkable talent—or curse—that carries her far from the fetid kitchen into an apprenticeship with a revered herbalist and ultimately to the highest circles of the Ducal court. But there is depravity lurking within the castle’s walls, inspiring brazen treacheries and usurpations—and foul abduction as unthinkable as it is unexpected.